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/lit/ - Literature

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11195859 No.11195859 [Reply] [Original]

Anyone else here struggling with reading books and being stupid? I tried to read Ulysses and I was already having problems in the first paragraph trying to visualize what the fuck the author was writing

>> No.11195864

>>11195859
No. Some people are just meant to pick weeds.

>> No.11195869

>>11195859
i feel ya, dude. there were several passages in Gravity's Rainbow and Moby Dick that I had no fucking clue what the writer was going on about so I just came up with my own interpretation and moved on

>> No.11195926

>>11195864
But I want to read too

>> No.11197724

>>11195859
start with an easier book maybe?

>> No.11197729

>>11195859
>start with an easier book maybe?

This. Start with something easier. Ulysses demands that you have some kind of familiarity with the canon before you can properly appreciate and enjoy it. You're not stupid, just ill prepared. And don't sap all the enjoyment out of what should be a pleasurable reading experience by buying a critical edition.

>> No.11197764

That book is too hard for you. I would not continue it if I could not follow the first paragraph, it will only get more hard. It is not even an issue with "familiarity with the canon" because James only begins writing in references to it twenty pages in. You will likely never become smart enough to get anything out of the later part of this book. That's okay. (>>11195864) Anon's advice is good. Read books that people in your own IQ bracket are reading and enjoying. Dubliner's is a fair bet if you have your heart set on the fart sucking fairy of Hibernia & Battlefield Earth is a similarly epic tale written by a master of fiction with important lessons about life and modernity, but it's much more accessible to the lower minds as well as the high minds. Joyce was known to make himself complicated on purpose, so don't feel too bad.

>> No.11198947

>>11195859
Stop trying to visualize everything you read.

>> No.11199246

>>11197729
I understand the appreciation for Ulysses and other dense works that rely heavy on intertextuality, but I feel like the best books are the ones who can stand on their own. If it's too hard to read for normal people I don't necessarily see that as a positive.

>> No.11199393
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11199393

>>11199246
>If it's too hard to read for normal people I don't necessarily see that as a positive.
What about just hard enough that scenes linger in your memory and have a much more probable chance of initiating either a re-engagement with the text or with other texts that you've just formed an association with after staring at fireworks, white sparks slip after the sonic burst down evening black air currents, or much more likely, nosetaass, sniff, sniff, here she rumbles, a farp scented aura quaffed luxuriously one midevening after suppper.